The near-hysteria about water consumption needs to be kept in proper perspective. In the water-short American West, including the Colorado River watershed, water is always an issue.
In terms of water access, the United States is effectively divided by the historic 100th meridian, which runs roughly through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. East of that line, rainfall is generally sufficient to support agriculture without irrigation. West of it, irrigation is necessary.
But precipitation alone does not illustrate the issue as well as water runoff, which is the amount of liquid that remains available for use after evaporation and plant transpiration. In much of the Intermountain West and Great Plains, most precipitation evaporates or is consumed by vegetation before reaching streams.
Relative to demand, west of the 100th meridian, water is always going to be an issue.
So it might be inevitable that water footprint becomes an issue for data centers, even if relative water consumption is quite low. Of course, a total water footprint would include the cost of generating electricity.
Still, industry uses relatively little water, compared to other sectors of the economy.
But an argument can be made that the easiest gains might come from increasing agriculture efficiency where it comes to water consumption.
And even if controversial, the easiest market encouragement might include shifting our subsidies for agricultural water pricing, as difficult as that will be for many farmers always on the brink of survival.
As always, rights and values are in tension. Most people might say they believe in supporting family farms, just as much as they might say they value water conservation. But the numbers are clear. Small gains in agriculture will produce more efficiency, faster, than small gains in consumption in other sectors.
Indeed, water pricing discourages efficiency because the users of 70 percent to 80 percent of the water pay the lowest prices for consumption. Again, values are in conflict. We might value food production and small farms as much as we value drinking water and electricity.
But there is an order of magnitude difference between agricultural water prices and all urban uses of water. And as with all commodities and goods, low prices encourage consumption; higher prices encourage efficiency.
Tradable water rights might be a preferred solution, shifting supply towards demand without expropriating or destroying farming. Also, it might make sense to encourage water-intensive agriculture only in regions with lots of water, while discouraging it in regions that are water scarce.
Again, this will be controversial.
In other words, does it make good sense to grow water-intensive rice, almonds or alfalfa in water-scarce regions?
As if that were not complicated enough, we also must balance protection of wetlands, fisheries, recreation and food sourcing.
Data center water consumption might be an issue, but a relatively small one, overall. How we use and price use of a scarce resource is really the bigger issue.
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